


Where are your clothes?

by Startanewdream



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dorks in Love, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29462949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Startanewdream/pseuds/Startanewdream
Summary: How James got himself naked in front of Lily Evans before their first date.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	Where are your clothes?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Petal's prompt "where are your clothes?", that was just too good to pass.

The fact that his first date ever with Lily Evans is right after a Full Moon night should be a good thing for James. He loves Full Moon nights and even if he is really tired the next morning, the rush of adrenaline and adventure with his best friends is always enough to relax him.

But he can’t stop counting down the hours this night, just as he counted all five days until their date ever since Lily accepted to go out with him. _Twelve hours_ , he thought as they were leaving the castle. _Eleven hours_ , was everything he thought as he turned into his stag. _Less than nine hours and what if I make a fool of myself, what if she hates our date, what if I forget to brush my teeth -_

Finally, Sirius pushes the werewolf back to the tunnel under the Whomping Willow and transforms back to glare at James, whose stag eyes blink innocently.

‘Go’, Sirius orders, sounding exasperated. ‘Your mind is clearly not here today, Prongs’.

The stag just pats the ground, its head curved down, looking properly ashamed.

‘I get it’, adds Sirius, gentler now. ‘Big day for you tomorrow. Go on, Wormtail and I can patch things here with Moony’. 

The stag looks back at Sirius with evident worry in his eyes. There is not much a rat can do and they both know it.

‘We will stay within the Shrieking Shack, it’ll be ok’, Sirius answers, unconcerned. ‘Go rest, or else you’ll sleep through your date tomorrow’.

That’s a very concerning thought, so James agrees and does the sensible thing, that is to bow to Sirius, his stag antlers trying to fondle him, though all the stag does is poke him in the eye. Sirius seems to appreciate the gesture anyway, turning into a dog to lick the stag’s head, drooling all over its fur, and before James can answer - now he will poke him on purpose -, Sirius vanishes inside the tunnel to the Whomping Willow.

He shakes his stag head but turns away, going to the spot where they store safely his Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder’s Map. Sirius is right, he could use some rest - if he can sleep at all, that is. He has been like that all week - alternating between moments of pure elation and absolute fear, because he really wants their date to be good. No, not good - the best one ever, the one that can prove to Lily that all these sparkles that have been flying between them mean _something_ , that all those feelings they have been nurturing for each other should not be contained…

Speaking of containment, he feels strangely uncomfortable in his stag form for the first time he can remember ever since the first transformation. It is as if he can’t turn back -

As soon as the thought comes to his mind, James feels really locked inside the animal, panic flooding his chest and making him feel like he is drowning. H _e can’t stay a stag_ , he has a date with Lily Evans and he won’t wear _antlers_ on their date -

No, he is being stupid. It’s even _worse_. Lily won’t go out in Hogsmeade with a stag by her side - she wouldn’t even recognize him.

No, that cannot be.

James closes his eyes and forces himself to breath slowly, just like he helped once Peter when he got stuck in his animagus form. He knows how to do it, he can turn back like he did one thousand times before. He just needs to concentrate on his human body, from the point of his fingers to the top of his messy hair.

And then he feels the transformation around him - two feet in the ground, hands at his side, the lightness of his antlers-free head and the cold wind around him now that he doesn’t have fur anymore.

Except the cold seems exceptionally strong, making him shiver violently - and he feels the wind on a particular spot that should not be feeling any wind at all.

James opens his eyes. He is _naked_ in the middle of Hogwarts grounds.

_No, no, no,_ he thinks, looking around for his wand, but it probably must have vanished with his clothes. He knows what he needs to do, because their Animagus Manual told that something like that could happen. He needs to turn back into his stag, then back to human - a fully clothed human, whose wand will be in the pocket of his jacket just as he left it.

Except he still has that lingering fear of not being able to turn back and what if something happens and - _antlers in a date with Lily Evans, no and no._

James decides he will solve this problem tomorrow morning. As soon as Sirius comes back, he will get his assistance to do all the transformation he needs, even tolerating any joke that Sirius will inevitably make.

He takes his Invisibility Cloak and, more than ever grateful for his family’s inheritance, he puts the Cloak around him. It does nothing against the cold, but it does help his dignity as he returns to the castle, going up barefooted all seven floors to the Gryffindor Tower.

‘ _Felix noctis_ ’, he says to the Fat Lady, thanking that by now she’s used to accepting the password even when she can’t see them at night.

She opens the portrait and now, at least, James can breathe calmer, feeling safe. He dragged his naked body all the way to the Gryffindor Common Room, and now he can return to his bed, put some clothes and -

He never sees the chair in the middle of the room, but suddenly he is laying on his side in the ground, his right arm flashing painfully, the Cloak spread in the floor around him, having fallen of his body to cover only his feet. For a second, a full second, he is just happy he fell on his side and not face down in the ground - where his most sensitive naked parts would certainly complain - until he hears her voice.

‘James?’

If James had any luck at all, the ground would open and swallow him. But as he clearly hasn’t, he can only turn his head to see Lily staring at him, looking beautiful in a robe, her face a bit pale. For a split second their gazes meet, then her eyes follow the length of his back, taking in the nudity that while James always hoped she could appreciate, he also expected it would be on a far better occasion.

Her mouth opens, surprised, and her face flushes dark red when she looks away.

‘Hum - where are your clothes?’

It’s a very good question and one James cannot answer - “ _it’s trapped with my animal form, the one I can’t tell you about_ ” doesn’t seem like an acceptable answer -, so he just wraps his Cloak around him, covering everything he can, and he rises with his smoothest grin, hoping it’s not obvious how embarrassed he feels right now.

Lily glances at him briefly, then she double turns.

‘Where is your body?’, she asks, and then James feels stupid as he looks down and sees only the floor.

All he is right now is a floating head, which somehow doesn’t look much better than Lily seeing his naked butt.

‘Night, Evans’, he says, hoping he sounds carefree as if it’s no big deal she has seen him naked even before their first kiss. ‘Fancy seeing you here’.

‘I could say the same, except I’m only seeing your head’, she notes, crossing her arms, but James can tell she is more curious than annoyed. That seems a good omen.

‘This - well, this thing you can’t see - is my Invisibility Cloak’.

‘Oh!’, she takes a step closer to him, seeming fascinated. ‘I’ve heard rumours about it, but I didn’t know you had one. Makes a lot of sense now, how you get away with things’. She throws him a speculative look. ‘Can I touch it?’

James nods, suddenly feeling even more nervous than when Lily Evans was staring at his naked body.

She raises her hand slowly, sighing surprised when she feels the softness of the Cloak, and James wishes the Cloak was thicker, because he can feel the tip of her fingers as she touches the Cloab above his arms, then his naked chest.

And he is sure Lily can feel how his heart is beating faster, though she doesn’t indicate anything when she smiles, looking back at him.

‘It’s so delicate! Can I try it on too?’, she asks brightly, then she blushes the prettiest shade of pink in the world. ‘Well, some other time when you are not using it, I mean’.

James flushes too, but he nods.

‘Tomorrow?’, he says almost tentatively, trying to see any indication that Lily is having seconds thoughts about going out with him. She smirks, that mischievous smile that always demands all of James’ effort to not kiss her there right then.

‘It depends, will you be wearing anything under?’

He could let the embarrassment take over, but she sounds more teasingly than anything, so he takes his chances. ‘I would, unless that’s not what you want, Evans’.

She laughs amusedly, and James feels something warm in his chest when he notices she doesn’t seem that opposed to what he said.

‘I might like that idea’, she replies lightly. ‘If only you had not started without me. Care to tell me what are you doing walking around naked in the castle?’

‘I sleepwalk’, he lies easily now.

‘And you are naked because -’

‘I sleep naked’.

‘I see. November weather is too hot for you?’, she jokes, but James sees she took a step away from him, clearly seeing through his lie. This makes him sigh.

‘I can’t really explain, Lily, I’m sorry, it’s not just _my_ secret’, he says truthfully. ‘What I can tell you is that I had an accident and, well, I found myself without any clothes in this cold November night’.

She doesn’t smile as he expected.

‘Hmmm’, Lily is frowning, seeming upset at some thought that crossed her mind. ‘And this _accident_ was with you alone?’

For a moment he doesn’t understand what she means - then he realizes how he looks, arriving after midnight in the Common Room without any clothes or a reasonable explanation, and he feels more panic now than when he was trapped in his animal form.

‘No! I mean, yes, I was alone, I would never - God, Lily, there would never be anyone else - I can’t stop thinking about you and our date, and I just want everything to be perfect, I didn’t sleep all week and I -’

He stops himself, seeing Lily’s eyebrows lifting more and more as she hears what he is babbling, and James feels just as foolish as when he was laying flat in the floor.

‘Ah - I’m sorry, Evans, I didn’t mean to - can - can we _please_ just forget tonight and pretend it never happened?’

Lily nods in silence, a peculiar fragile expression on her face, and James tries to smile bravely.

‘Then good night, Evans, I will - _hopefully_ \- see you tomorrow -’

‘Me too’, she whispers suddenly. ‘I mean, I haven’t been sleeping, that’s why I was here tonight. I -’, she looks at him, her eyes sparkling. ‘I am nervous too’.

‘Oh’.

For a moment they just stare at each other, and just like it happened a lot of times over the last months, James can feel the sparkles of electricity around them, some sort of power stronger than magic that makes them feel drawn to each other.

He could take a step closer to Lily, and he could bend down his head in search of her lips and he could cup her face as -

As the Cloak would fall around him and he would be all naked during his first kiss with Lily Evans.

While someday he hopes they can get to that point, this is not the moment. All he has to do is wait for a few hours until their carefully planned, fully clothed date. So James forces himself to breath slowly.

‘Perhaps we can be nervous together tomorrow?’, he offers in a low voice, bringing a soft smile to her lips.

‘Perhaps we can _stop_ being nervous tomorrow’, she counters, and his heart races with that familiar need of Lily Evans, but all he does is nod. 

‘It’s a plan’, he agrees, beaming. ‘Good night, Evans’.

‘Good night, James’, she replies, and he sees her turning around to the stairs to her dormitory. On the first step, she turns to him with that smirk he absolutely loves. ‘You know, I don’t think I’ll forget tonight’.

‘Fancy seeing me embarrassing myself, Evans?’, he replies teasingly, and she laughs.

‘With that nice butt of yours, there was nothing to be embarrassed about, Potter’, Lily declares, watching him gasp, and with a wink, she climbs the stairs, leaving a very flustered and content James to stare at the spot she vanished.

Seven hours until his date with Lily Evans. He can survive it.


End file.
